ooh la Rue La La [a sponsored post]

In addition to having me along for their party at Alt Summit earlier this year Rue La La gave me a bit of store credit to spend so that I could report on what the experience was like. Sounds like a crazy good dream right? I’m not going to lie to you, it completely was.

In case you’re not already familiar with them here are the basics: Rue La La is a curated shopping site that offers impressive discounts on goods or coupons for women, men, kids and household stuff on a daily basis and travel and local finds for a bunch of cities on a weekly basis. In addition to shops featuring single brands they have collections of things like winter boots or summer dresses or, a recent favorite of mine, things that will get you ready for Sunday brunch (they had everything from specialty coffee to electric griddles). They carry a lot of high end brands and I have to admit I was a little afraid I might not find anything for our mostly practical household but it turns out that I shouldn’t have worried, they have a great mix of both the things you need and delicious eye candy (at impressive discounts). Rue La La is one of the oldest quick sales sites, have a huge number of shoppers and, I can say with confidence, are super nice people.

One of the things I like about Rue La La is that when you buy your first item you pay $9.95 for shipping and for the next 30 days your shipping is covered. I bought a good featherbed, pictured above, which came in a ginormous heavy box and I was grateful for that shipping price. And, oh my gosh people, having a featherbed is like sleeping on a cloud that is warm but not too warm and puffy but not too puffy. When it arrived we unpacked it and laid it out on the bed to let it fluff up (I hereby heart baffles). Scott flopped down on it and refused to leave for a solid ten minutes. We love it.

It is good to keep in mind that shipping is covered when you find something you like because things get sold out very quickly. One morning I found a fantastically priced Diane Von Furstenberg dress (silk print with a twist front, I could have worn it for so many occasions) and in the time it took me to decide between two sizes they were both sold out. Urgh. I refilled my coffee cup and by the time I got back to the table all of the sizes were sold out. Poof. The site has a shopping bag but they also wisely offer a “Quick! Buy It” button that I learned to use for items I was certain about. Each of the shops stay up for 48 hours and if you spot something you wanted but is sold out there is a “Still Want It?” option you can use and the folks at Rue La La told me that about 50% of the time they are still able to get the deal for you.

Rue La La has mobile apps for iPhone and Android and I found the iPhone app was very easy to navigate. I used my phone to buy the gold flats pictured above while lying in bed, it kinda made me feel like a princess so I took a photo from the same spot. If there is one thing I learned at Alt Summit it’s that I’ll use gold flats far more often than I might have thought. (You are secretly jealous of my pink polka dot pajama pants.)

Sales go up daily and most appear at 11 a.m. East coast time, meaning they are at 8 a.m. here on the West Coast. At first I was feeling a little like “everything has to happen so early here” but then a friend pointed out that she was able to shop Rue La La on her phone while on the bus on her way to work in the mornings. Another friend chimed in to say that she browses the new arrivals while she is walking her dog in the morning. I find this completely charming. It’s like we are living in the future.

Scott’s rubber boots got a hole in them so we replaced them with this far nicer looking pair of slip on shoes. These were meant to serve as mud shoes for chores but he reports they are so comfortable they might become shoes for trekking around the city on particularly rainy days instead.

To help you stay on top of sales that you’re interested in Rue La La lets you set up notices. They show you what’s coming up in the week or so ahead and you can choose to have the site email or text you when the shop goes live, and there is a nice little checklist layout for it so it takes seconds to do. I was really impressed with how easy they made it. When you do order something your confirmation and shipping notice emails come from “the Rue La La Concierge” which made me laugh.

Rue La La surprised me with the variety of what they have. I knew they offered lots of clothing and accessories but I also found kitchen appliances and gadgets, home decor, luggage and even modern fireplaces (which I wish we had a spot for, I’d be all over that). I have to admit I was not expecting to find wine among the sales. The bottles pictured above are two single vineyard varieties and I’m sort of in love with the dramatic labels. We’re planning on having friends over to share. I feel weirdly grown up to have such an abundance of matching wine in my house.

One of the things I was most surprised by was how helpful I started to find the weekly travel sales as they introduce me to new hotels or destinations. We’re headed to New England in the fall and twice now lovely inns have been featured that would be perfect (and I swear sound like they are located right inside Stars Hollow). While the dates of the deals didn’t coincide with our trip I am still happy to have learned about a great place I didn’t know about before. Also, I have to admit, the island getaways are like travel porn in the middle of a gloomy day here. Rue La La also has a selection of local deals for the cities of Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Washington DC and (hooray) Seattle (we’re usually not on those sorts of lists). As with travel I’ve been introduced to spots around Seattle that I wasn’t familiar with yet.

Thanks for letting me a have a good look inside what you do, Rue La La!

Rue La La gave me credit to use to purchase the items I talk about above but all the opinions and observations are my own.

More details on the featherbed, please! and what kind of sheets are on your bed?–they look so much thicker than anything I have been able to find–they remind me of fresh sheets drying on a clothes line : )

Heather – Interestingly I don’t have the name of the brand of my featherbed because I cannot find the tag on it. I do know that you want to look for full baffles,meaning that instead of the boxes being just stitched like a quilt each section is actually a box. This helps keep the feathers fluffy. Also look for squared corners, ours says it has Dutch Corners but another good thing would be sides with a gusset edge. Down is softest but expensive, I read somewhere that I cannot find now that Small Grey Duck Feather is second best. Our cover on this is 195 thread count Twill cotton which so far appears plenty tight enough to hold in the pokey ends of the feathers. Two places that make lots of down items that I know of are Pacific Coast Feather Company (I pass their outlet store here in Seattle a lot) and The Company Store, where I bought two down comforters about a decade ago that I still use.

The white sheet you see there is a comforter cover that I bought on sale at Macy’s a decade ago (wowsers). It’s percale and has that nice combination of soft and crisp but it is hell bent on sliding off the top of the comforter and I have sewed ribbon ties all along the top and sides to stop it, almost to no avail.

I am a true believer that there is no other weave for sheets but percale and it’s surprisingly difficult to find in stores, especially when you really want something greater than 250 thread count. The Martha Stewart line of solid 400 thread count percale sheets is something I would invest in. I bought her percale 400 thread count patterned sheets for our guest bed and I was disappointed to find out the pattern is only on one side. I also like the feel of the percale Calvin Klein sheets you can find at Macys (and they have frequent sales), also The Company Store and Garnet Hill are two places I keep my eye on for sheets.

Our very favorite sheets came from Target, they are a striped percale Thomas O’Brien set that started out soft and has only gotten better. Percale does wrinkle, as you can see above, but to be honest I’m more interested in how my bedding feels than how it looks.

Ok! Everybody that requested an invitation to Rue La La has been sent one — if anybody else wants one just let me know. Just a note: I sent the invitations myself from my own account and not as a list in an email or anything like that. Though, obviously, the site has your email now. Thanks for asking everybody!

Alright, all invites sent — if you requested one and didn’t get it lemme know and I’ll happy send one again. The email will come from Rue La La, the invite is through a form on their site, but the message is from me. Cheers everybody! Today has been fun.

I have bought toys, dresses, workout clothing, and cheesecake from Rue La La. I’ve loved the experience, though I’m not quite a super frequent shopper. It’s great seeing all the different things, even the super expensive jewelry that I am completely uninterested in!